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Topic: Joint and several liability

	Robinson, Calcagnie & Robinson (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-28)
		Liability attaches to a concurrent tortfeasor in this situation not because he is responsible for the acts of other independent tortfeasors who may also have caused the injury, but because he is responsible for all damage which his own negligence has caused.
		The doctrine of joint and several liability is based upon the rationale that culpable defendants, rather than the injured plaintiff, should bear the risk of inadequate contribution by others responsible for the harm.
		One of the principal by-products of the joint and several liability rule is that it frequently permits an injured person to obtain full recovery for his injuries even when one or more of the responsible parties do not have the financial resources to cover their liability.
	www.robinson-pilaw.com /joint_several_art.htm (1303 words)

	Joint and several liability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Joint and several liability is a hybrid of both; with respect to the claimant, the parties are jointly liable, but as between obligors themselves, the liabilities are several.
		Joint and several liability is most relevant in tort claims, whereby a plaintiff may recover all the damages from any of the defendants regardless of their individual share of the liability.
		Joint and several liability, reform supporters argue, leads to lawyers searching for "deep pockets" to sue (in the expectation that they will settle rather than risk trial), even though those defendants may only be remotely related to an incident.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Joint_and_several_liability (862 words)

	ATRA :: Joint and Several Liability Rule Reform (via CobWeb/3.1 planetlab1.cs.wisc.edu) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-28)
		The application of the doctrine of joint and several liability poses a particularly serious problem for professionals whose clients have become bankrupt or are otherwise "judgment proof." For example, many lawsuits that involve professionals are brought by shareholders or creditors of a bankrupt client.
		Joint and several liability was abolished through a ballot initiative, Proposition 2, on the November 8, 1988 ballot.
		Limited joint and several (except in products liability actions and actions involving a blame-free plaintiff) holds defendants severally liable except when uncollectible shares of a judgment are reallocated between solvent co-defendants according to their degree of negligence, joint and several liability is abolished for municipalities.
	www.atra.org.cob-web.org:8888 /show/7345 (1429 words)

	Joint and Several Liability Reform States
		The theory of Joint and Several Liability allows that each defendant in a legal action is responsible for the entire amount of damages that a plaintiff is seeking, regardless of their relative degree of responsibility for the damages involved.
		Modifies the law for joint and several liability in cases involving personal injury, property damage and wrongful death such that each party is responsible for their own fault but not individually liable for the entire obligation.
		Several liability exists, except for a person whose fault is greater than 50%; two or more persons who act in a common plan that results in injury; a person who commits an intentional tort; or a person whose liability arises under specified chapters of the Minnesota Statutes.
	www.namic.org /reports/tortReform/JointAndSeveralLiability.asp (1398 words)

	§ 4.12. Joint, Several, Proportionate Liability and Contribution Under the PSLRA
		Presumably, in making the determination for joint and several liability purposes that the defendant did not know the representation was false, the fact finder has also determined that the defendant had no knowledge for purposes of the Section 18(a) defense and must only determine that the defendant acted in good faith to find no liability.
		Each such defendant is liable “for the uncollectible share in proportion to the percentage of responsibility” of that defendant, but not in excess of “50 percent of the proportionate share” of that defendant.
		This provision allows one who is jointly liable who is required to pay the entire judgment or more than his/her percentage of responsibility to obtain contribution from defendants liable for non-knowing violations, from other defendants jointly liable, and from persons not named as defendants for amounts up to their respective percentage of liability.
	www.bloomt-hal.com /chapter4/4_12.htm (2910 words)

	What Type Of Liability Regime Should Replace Joint And Several Liability (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-28)
		proportionate liability with the retention of joint and several liability for unsophisticated plaintiffs;
		Under a system of proportionate liability, the liability of each defendant is limited to the proportion of the loss or damage for which he or she is found to be actually responsible.
		Joint and several liability, however, would continue to apply to claims where fraud or dishonesty was involved and to claims for financial loss by unsophisticated plaintiffs.
	www.parl.gc.ca /36/1/parlbus/commbus/senate/Com-e/bank-e/rep-e/rep09part_three.htm (6669 words)

	ATRA :: Joint and Several Liability Rule Reform
		Joint and several liability is a theory of recovery that permits the plaintiff to recover damages from multiple defendants collectively, or from each defendant individually.
		Joint and Several Liability Reform: SB 1036: (1987): Ariz.
		Joint and Several Liability Reform: HF 1493 (1988): Minn.
	www.atra.org /issues/index.php?issue=7345 (3954 words)

	White and Williams LLP - Sweeping Changes to Joint and Several Liability in Pennsylvania
		Under prior law in Pennsylvania, such joint tortfeasors were "jointly and severally liable" to an injured party; that is, each tortfeasor was liable for the full amount of the judgment, regardless of degrees of fault.
		Under several liability, a defendant is liable to pay only his proportionate share of liability, and not the full amount of the judgment.
		By substantially abolishing the principle of joint and several liability except in a narrow class of cases, no longer will minimally-liable defendants be required to fund the full amount of the judgment, regardless of degrees of fault.
	www.whitewms.com /CM/NewsAlerts/NewsAlerts300.asp (705 words)

	Opinion: Repeal joint and several liability
		It is time to repeal the legal doctrine of joint and several, which enables plaintiffs to collect damages from a defendant beyond a defendant's proportion of the fault.
		While joint and several liability is intended to ensure that the victim is not faced with paying for injuries caused by others, there have been abuses and there is a fundamental issue of fairness.
		Joint and several only applies to economic damages such as medical bills and lost wages; it does not apply to non-economic damages such as those for pain and suffering.
	www.sptimes.com /2006/02/26/Opinion/Repeal_joint_and_seve.shtml (644 words)

	Public Citizen \| Congress Watch \| Congress Watch - Joint and Several Liability: A Common Law Doctrine Worth Saving (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-28)
		Joint and several liability ensures that the innocent victim is fully compensated in cases where one or more wrongdoers are not able to pay their share of the compensation.
		Tort "reform" advocates claim that joint and several liability is unfair because it forces individual defendants to pay for harm caused by others and is used disproportionately against wealthy defendants (most often large corporations).
		Joint and several liability is a necessary tool used to ensure that plaintiff's recover all of their damages.
	www.citizen.org /congress/civjus/tort/tortlaw/articles.cfm?ID=834 (733 words)

	Liability Reform (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-28)
		The concept of joint and several liability holds that when more than one defendant is found to be liable for damages sustained by a plaintiff, each defendant is liable for the entire amount of damages.
		Joint and several liability was especially damaging to CPAs, who often are "peripheral" defendants when a company fails.
		Even before liability is determined, the possibility of facing a liability well-beyond any amount the CPA may have actually caused will place tremendous pressure on CPAs to settle a case rather than risk a huge loss.
	www.icpas.org /icpas/ei/probrf27.asp (455 words)

	Visitors \| Legislators - Proportionate Liability
		Under joint and several liability, multiple defendants found to be liable share the burden of paying damages to the plaintiff -- without regard to the proportion of damage caused by any one defendant.
		The treatment of joint and several liability is a compelling circumstance that leads many accounting firms to settle such lawsuits because of the high costs of litigation and the exposure to shouldering the burden of the liability for a case.
		Joint and several liability provisions for accountants should be abolished and replaced with state rules that provide for proportionate liability.
	www.picpa.org /visitors/legislators/issues/proportionate_liability.asp (309 words)

	Joint and Several Liability
		Supporters of joint and several liability argue that without it plaintiffs would be required to identify every potential wrongdoer, prove the misconduct of each that caused the injury, provide a reasonable basis for apportioning the damages against defendants, and recover a separate judgement against each.
		Proponents of abolishing joint and several liability contend it is unfair to require defendants who may be liable for a small part of an injury to pay, in some cases, the entire amount of the award.
		As no bills concerning joint and several were introduced between 1989 and 1992, the MSBA did not have the opportunity to voice a position on joint and several liability.
	www.msba.org /sec_comm/committees/lawscomm/legislativeprogram02/jointsev.htm (569 words)

	Editorial: Deep-pocket justice / Time to rein in 'joint and several liability' (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-28)
		The legal jargon is "joint and several liability." In Pennsylvania, as in other states, plaintiffs often identify several defendants in filing a personal-injury lawsuit.
		Under the doctrine of joint and several liability, the other defendants can be dunned for the full award, even if they were found in court to be only marginally responsible.
		But defenders of joint and several liability argue that the alternative is a different sort of unfairness: A jury determines that an injured plaintiff is entitled to X amount of dollars in damages, but because one or more defendants can't pay their share, the plaintiff receives less than he is entitled to.
	www.post-gazette.com /forum/20020611edtort0611p2.asp (465 words)

	The Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers - Legislative Updates - AFTL Position Papers
		The doctrine of Joint and Several Liability allows each offender to be held responsible for the victim’s full medical bills and lost wages in order to ensure that a victim’s full medical bills are paid.
		Thus it is clear that current claims that Joint and Several Responsibility forces the guilty to pay more than their “fair share” are based on a misunderstanding of the doctrine of Joint and Several Liability and a distortion of the purpose of apportionment.
		Joint and Several NEVER applies to guilty offenders who are less at fault than their victims.
	www.aftl.org /legislativeUpdates_positionPapers_detail.asp?ID=30 (1624 words)

	Development of the Law of Joint and Several Liability, The FDCC Quarterly - Find Articles
		The "joint" in joint and several originally referred only to a procedural device that allowed defendants to be joined in a single lawsuit, when multiple tortfeasors acted in concert or when vicarious liability applied.3 Existing procedure of the time did not otherwise permit joinder.
		Before the advent of comparative responsibility, "several liability" was employed to describe a defendant who was responsible for all of the plaintiff's damages but who could not be joined in a suit with any other defendant who may also have been responsible.
		"Several liability" was also employed when damages could be apportioned among concurrent tortfeasors based on their causal contribution to the plaintiff's injury, thereby rendering each defendant "severally [fully] liable" for the portion of the plaintiff's injury caused by that defendant.5
	www.findarticles.com /p/articles/mi_qa4023/is_200507/ai_n15615049 (607 words)

	Construction Injury Law: Joint Liability Under Comparative Fault (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-28)
		Joint and several liability was designed to obviate a plaintiff's burden of proving for which share of an injury each of several defendants was responsible.
		There are recognized situations in tort law where a basis for joint and several liability must remain consistent with the legislative intent that a defendant only be held responsible for its proportionate share of the total fault.
		The foregoing explains why joint and several liability continues to be viable when multiple defendants concurrently cause a single indivisible injury which either defendant would have caused alone.
	www.conour.com /documents_web/essays/comp_flt.htm (3299 words)

	SSRN-The Vitality of Joint and Several Liability: Amici Curiae Brief, Norfolk & Western Railway Co. v. Ayers, 123 S. ...
		Joint-and-several liability is the universal rule in other countries, and all but a handful of the courts in the United States have consistently stated, even after the adoption of comparative responsibility, that joint-and-several liability is the fairest method of allocating liability among the multiple responsible causes of an injury.
		The courts note that, under joint and several liability, a defendant generally is only liable for injuries for which it is fully responsible as a tortious, actual, and proximate cause.
		The Restatement Third, while not adopting any single allocation method, states that the fairest method for allocating liability among multiple responsible causes of an injury is joint-and-several liability with re-allocation of uncollectible shares among the responsible parties, and it strongly criticizes proportionate several liability.
	papers.ssrn.com /sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=392786 (565 words)

	Florida Asset Protection: Florida Repeals Joint and Several Liability
		Under the current law, joint and several liability applies in modified form to economic damages but it had been previously dispensed with for noneconomic damages in favor of a comparative fault approach.
		Joint and several liability is the legal theory by which plaintiffs go after “deep pockets” in lawsuits for negligence and other torts.
		Under this long standing legal principal all defendants are individually liable for the total amount of the plaintiff’s damages regardless of their proportionate degree of fault.
	floridaassetprotection.blogs.com /alperlaw/2006/03/florida_repeals.html (286 words)

	Debts Manager - Joint Liability
		This means that if you have a joint loan with a spouse or partner and one of you fails to repay the debt (this often happens following divorce or separation) then the lender could still ask you for payment of the full amount (not just half).
		Joint and several liability can also apply to rent arrears on joint tenancies, arrears on joint mortgages, council tax payments and water charges on properties that have been jointly occupied.
		For an agreement to be joint and several it must be signed by all parties (except for council tax).
	www.debtsmanager.com /joint_liability.html (216 words)

	Internal Revenue Manual - 25.15.1 Introduction
		Thus, under the joint and several liability concept, each spouse is responsible for the entire income tax liability even though all or part of the liability arises from income earned by or a deduction attributable to the other spouse.
		The individual claiming his or her signature was forged is not jointly or severally liable for liabilities arising from such a return if the signature was indeed forged.
		RRA 98 substantially expanded the relief from joint and several liability with the enactment of IRC 6015 (RRA 98 § 3201(a)).
	www.irs.gov /irm/part25/ch11s01.html (3721 words)

	Pa.’s joint and several liability reform (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-28)
		Under the legal concept of joint and several liability, each defendant in a lawsuit—even those with minimal or partial legal responsibility—was held financially liable for the full amount of a damage award if other defendants were bankrupt, failed to carry insurance or had their insurance coverage limits tapped by the award.
		Although it did not strenuously lobby against it, the POS said it opposed the joint and several liability legislation because it would not reduce malpractice insurance premiums for specialty surgeons, and it would expose their personal assets to increased risk in a lawsuit.
		A potential weakness of the law for physicians is the provision that would reinstate joint and several liability in the event of intentional tort, which may now be targeted more heavily by plaintiff attorneys, according to Braunfeld.
	www.physiciansnews.com /cover/902.html (1999 words)

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